For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices . This verse is NOT one of his choices; I thought it was interesting and have added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in 4,8x . This verse of course uses the exact same second line as 123,11 . I don't want to say that it recycles it, because it was almost certainly the other way around. When Ghalib arrived in Lucknow en route to Calcutta, he had hopes of some financial support from the Navab of Avadh, Ghazi ul-Din Haidar. The Navab's chief minister was Mutamad ul-Daulah Agha Mir. (On Ghalib's Lucknow visit see Russell and Islam , pp. 46-47.) For various reasons, including his own intransigence, Ghalib's hopes were not fulfilled. Common sense suggests that he initially composed the present verse as part of the original form of the ghazal, no doubt with a view to presenting it to Mutamad ul-Daulah. Later, after losing all hope of support from that quarter, he reworked the present verse into {123,11} for the divan . Thus it seems very probable that this ghazal in its original form was composed during, or shortly before, his stay in Lucknow (as opposed to retrospectively). graphics/kaf.jpg